


Social Behaviors in Untreated PDS Patients, Or: BDFFs

by orphan_account



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Gen, set in an AU where no one got exhumed I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 04:04:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1804624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think Amy and I both agreed when we <em>met</em>, I just pretended it was different if I could help it. She told you about when we introduced ourselves, after we got treatment, yeah.” Kieren clears his throat.  “But before that, for years, we... hunted together.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Social Behaviors in Untreated PDS Patients, Or: BDFFs

“Do you think he’s right?” Simon steps over a tree branch and glances back at Kieren, who steps up next to him. He isn’t sure how he feels about all this, himself.

“I hope so.” Kieren’s mouth pulls down consideringly, at the corner. He shrugs, keeps walking. “I mean, I realize he’s probably just- desperate. But something was going on with Amy, before she died. Maybe…”

“Maybe.” The knot of hope that’s been growing in Simon’s chest grows tighter. “If Amy did rise again… she hasn’t had her medication, she didn’t come to either of us…”

“She might not be in her right mind, just now. I know.” Kieren stops scanning the trees for a brief moment to glance at Simon. “Did Amy ever tell you how we met?”

“She did.” Simon tilts his head, remembering. It has always seemed impressive, how close they managed to grow in what must have been a short time. “She said you were at your graves. You were ‘moping’, apparently, and she talked you into going to some fair to get your mind off things. It sounded like something she would do.”

“Huh.” Kieren sounds surprised. “Didn’t actually expect that.”

“You… disagree that’s when you met?”

“I think Amy and I both agreed when we _met_ , I just pretended it was different if I could help it. She told you about when we introduced ourselves, after we got treatment, yeah.” Kieren clears his throat. “But before that, for years, we... hunted together.”

Wait.

“You- for _years_?” Simon has never actually heard of the redeemed hunting together for that long. He wouldn’t remember it himself, certainly. His own memories pre-medication are even patchier than most, nothing but brief flashes of blood, or people, or bits of scenery. Usually in the form of dreams.

“Since we rose.”

-

It takes a long time, to pull himself from the dirt. When he first freed himself there had been no one he could see, but now others- like him and not what he’s craving- are popping up, stumbling off to where what they need is.

By the time he’s bringing himself to his feet, the rain has stopped. He takes a few stumbling steps, paws at the clumps of dirt still sticking to the things on him. He can’t remember the word. It’s not important.

He has begun to follow the others, when something reaches out and clutches tight at his ankle. He starts, snarls and goes to kick at whatever it is, but then he looks down.

It’s another one of them, obviously. Struggling to climb out like he’d been, using his leg as something to grip on. Female, something pale on under all the dirt. Red in her hair.

She snarls back at him, grunts. Tugs at his leg.

He doesn’t have the presence of mind to offer her a hand up. The memory of struggling out of the grave himself is fading, nothing sticking to him anymore. He will not remember it for a long time.

But he still stays. Doesn’t kick at her, when she keeps using him to help her up. Many others have climbed out and walked away, and he still stands there.

She manages it eventually- something keeping her stuck dislodges and she is all of her crawling out over the grass.

She is the flash of red in her hair and the great poofy thing swinging about her legs and the spikes in her eyes. She gets up, yanks at everything on her until less dirt is weighing her down, and then looks at him.

There is a moment or two of grunting and rasping and sniffing, and then she reaches out and paws at his face. It presses too much, and he shakes his head but doesn’t bite at her fingers. He responds by reaching out and gripping a clump of her hair, but she bats him away before he pulls at it.

They look at each other again, and then there is a howl from where the walls are, something high pitched that makes both their mouths water.

They stumble away, together.

-

This time, he does bite at her fingers. The memory of not having bitten her fingers didn’t stick past the making of it, though the girl did, and now she is smacking at his face and trying to get him to move.

There is a clear thing full of sharpened sticks on the shelf. He doesn’t know why he likes looking at it so much, but he does. She keeps trying to get him to keep moving.

He tries to show her the sticks, hand sticking out to tap clumsy fingers against them, but they don’t do for her what they do for him. She lets her eyes slide over them for a moment, then is disinterested and resumes prodding at him.

He shoves at her, lets out a more vicious snarl than they usually share between each other. She stomps off and he resumes his starring.

He does not know how long he stands there- he only understands the world as it is happening, and measuring lengths of time is so far beyond him as to be laughable. She has wandered off somewhere else, has probably forgotten already that he ever existed. That is certainly what he has done.

But there is a crash, and as his head jerks to look at it he watches as a shelf falls into another into another, a great cacophony erupting in the inside he has found himself in. At the end of it stands flashofredflairaroundlegsspikeeyes and she is new to him, now, but he sees her and knows that this is the one he should be hunting with. 

He walks to her and the sticks have fled his mind, and as his thoughts reform he understands her as having always been there. Constant and eternal, for now.

-

Now he is pulling at her hair. The both fell and went dark, for awhile, laying on the ground in a slab of grey-black. This surprises him every time, as by the time his form needs to stop he has already long forgotten the last time it happened.

She is down some space away from him. He can not see their past in his head but he knows by now, down where his bones live, that he can not leave without her- that she is as necessary for him to hunt as his own two feet. So he reaches out and curls his fingers in her hair and tugs at it.

She bats at his hand, groans. Lets out a noise almost like the food’s words, hard and then droning and then a hum. He starts, and shakes at her harder. He wants to know how she made those.

When she wakes he tries to gesture at her mouth, but she is grunting and looking around and does not look at him until she is already standing.

He has forgotten what she did that was so important, as the swing of the thing on her legs caught his eye. He stands, and they look at each other, and they resume their hunt.

-

She has stopped. Dropped to the ground, but she is up. She looks around while he huffs confusedly at her, and then gestures off into the distance.

He looks. The sky’s burning. He sits too.

They sit together, and watch the sky burn until it has gone out and gone blue, and then they get up and resume their walk.

-

They have lost each other in the shelves, but she knocks down some food and snarls and he hears it, goes to find redflairspikes again. There are more food noises, too, shots.

He gets them in his sights as everything goes darker and then food is walking right to him. He reaches out, grabs at it and-

-

She is stumbling through the woods. She- she is doing the same thing, over again, but more wrong. That is what she feels is happening. But she doesn’t know what she did before.

She went to find food, but no one else was there and she went the wrong way. There was a wall with holes in it she couldn’t fit through. She keeps finding it new all over again.

She is in luck, when she sees the dark one. He is looking around everywhere she isn’t, walking like how food walks, and she can’t help the hungry snarl she lets out as she stumbles toward him. He turns, and his face is wrong.

Something else grabs her, and she turns and thinks it is more food at first. But then she sees it and it is bluesharpstill and all she knows in the world is that he is her partner but he is stopping her. She groans, and shows him her teeth, but he doesn’t stop. Keeps making a noise like a birdsound and reaches out to tangle his fingers in her hair.

She stops tugging away from him. Reaches up even as the food barks a noise and pushes her hand into the skin of his cheek. They stay there.

Her eyes slide off his after she doesn’t know how long, and she sees the food but now as she looks at it she understands it isn’t food. Even with how it walks, he has the wrong face and smell for it. He is a strange one of them.

He has corrected her mistake, shown her their- the other is another hunting partner, yes, now she understands. He pulls his fingers from her hair and tugs at her. He is taking her to where food really is, maybe. She follows.

**Author's Note:**

> Untreated pov is weird and I'm not sure if I like how I did it. Otherwise, yeah, I... really wanted to write a fic showing bits of what it was like back when Amy and Kieren were both untreated and still hunting together? Except I kept the actual 'hunting' to a minimum.


End file.
